NBC wants more ISPs to spy on users, reform Safe Harbor

NBCU's general counsel argues that Net Neutrality is red herring, and that the real problem with online traffic flow is caused by piracypiracy which he believes the government should mandate ISPs to battle.

You can tell by what they are asking for, that people like this moron have no clue as to how the technology really works..

I predict that very soon this numbskull will have it explained to him that if the pirates encrypt the traffic, there's no way to tell what's being sent.. And he will then call for a ban on encryption, 'because it's a tool used to enable piracy', with no clue as to the fact that doing so would cause e-commerce to grind to a hault if SSL was outlawed..

Better to keep your mouth shut and have people think you are and idiot, then to open it and remove all doubt.

Seriously, I think we need to start emailing NBC to get this guy mussled or fired. I wonder how well his last comment that we are not allocating our law enforcement properly is sitting with law enforcement who may have better things to do like keep us safe from thugs, crack addicts and terrorists.

Now Rick wants ISP's to filter traffic to protect Media Companies IP and copyrights. The last time I looked I didn't see a whole lot on NBC worth pirating. I certainly don't see ISPs protecting anything of mine. My ISP wouldn't even do anything (like tell me the original ISP) when a spammer hijacked my home page.

I think we should give Rick the "Jack Thompson Self Promotion and Liking to See His Name in Print Award" and see if he goes away.

Ken, you said, "few in 1998 could have imagined that Congress would someday be asked to mandate that ISPs actively filter their network traffic for copyrighted material." Actually, before there was the DMCA, there was the NII taskforce set up by Al Gore and chaired by Ron Brown. This exact same proposal was made back in 1994. It wasn't considered technically feasible at the time.

Today, it still isn't technically feasible (even with DPE) without taking out much of the legal with the illegal. For example, a simple mechanism would be to flag and rate limit all heavy P2P users. This would hit companies like Joost, which would also please NBC and AT&T, because it removes a competitor under the guise of collateral damage from fighting piracy.

I just moved to a new area and now have AT&T DSL (would not reccomend to anyone) and I am almost certain that I am now rate limited after watching Joost about 3 hours a day for a week. It now takes about 10 seconds just to load google.com. If I could change to cable I would do it in a heatbeat, but I can not as I am living in a rented place where internet is included. Limiting the speed of a connection just makes people want to switch away, but they do it anyway.

I think the FeEx and UPS analogy is apt, but not in the way he stated. It should read:

"What if there is a percieved notion of loss due to theft from a major industry and they demand the government open and inspect every package that is sent anywhere, regardless of any and all privacy laws."

this idea is already infeasible. besides encryption, there is already a program used on the darknet to thwart detection and filtering. it is a program that will wrap a file inside of an image file. and to any filtering program, it will look like any other image file being sent across the net.

what comes after that? banning images from the net because they might be used for piracy?

and then the publishers could get together and get text banned from the internet, because someone might be typing their works onto a webpage.

<fakenewsflash>During today's conference call with FCC leaders and government officials, NBC/Universal general counsel Rick Cotton demanded that the US Postal Service, along with all private delivery services, must be required to check the contents of any and all mail/delivery items sent to and/or from private US households to ensure that their contents are not comprised of what he called "blatantly pirated movies, TV shows or music burnt on CDs/DVDs". "It is of vital importance to the very survival of our nation that the FCC and the government take a proactive role in the prevention of the mass-mailing of stolen goods throughout the United States", he added.</fakenewsflash>

Originally posted by Glyphon:this idea is already infeasible. besides encryption, there is already a program used on the darknet to thwart detection and filtering. it is a program that will wrap a file inside of an image file. and to any filtering program, it will look like any other image file being sent across the net.

what comes after that? banning images from the net because they might be used for piracy?

and then the publishers could get together and get text banned from the internet, because someone might be typing their works onto a webpage.

I have used that program before, but I'll be damned if I can remember what it was called. It wasn't PGP, was it? Regardless, it was really neat, and you couldn't extract the file from the wrap without the correct key.

Funny how this creep comes out of the woodwork as NBC shows continually dropping revenue. I don't want to get into the reasons why television is a lousy medium for "pro-profit" industry (Cough *dumbing down of news reporting* Cough), but I get the feelings this is all just a show to convince stockholders that "something is being done." We (all of us, lawmakers included) should just ignore this jackass until he and his crew get voted out by the stockholders.

Originally posted by YourConscience:I have used that program before, but I'll be damned if I can remember what it was called. It wasn't PGP, was it? Regardless, it was really neat, and you couldn't extract the file from the wrap without the correct key.

PGP is (fairly old, but still good) encryption software. That's it, just encrypts, and decrypts given the public key for the file... no, admittedly neat, wrapping in a picture.

Originally posted by Octavus:I just moved to a new area and now have AT&T DSL (would not reccomend to anyone) and I am almost certain that I am now rate limited after watching Joost about 3 hours a day for a week. It now takes about 10 seconds just to load google.com. If I could change to cable I would do it in a heatbeat, but I can not as I am living in a rented place where internet is included. Limiting the speed of a connection just makes people want to switch away, but they do it anyway.

have you hit any of the internet speed test sites? I believe I recall seeing one at both MSN and CNet.. that will measure your actual bandwidth, see if you are getting the speed you are paying for.

After all if I'm paying more to get 1.5 or 3mb or somesuch, and then discover I'm only getting say 600K, then somebody better be able to explain to me why the hell I'm not billed for the 768K rate instead..

I check mine every few months, or if it ever seems 'slow' because that's what I'm paying them for.. (if I wanted shared bandwidth I'd have cable).

You can also use a product like PingPlotter (shareware) to do a regular ping to a few known sites to see what your latency is.

I've found the latter to be very useful in detecting stuff like a router that is dropping packets and slowing everything down. Again I'm paying for a low latency connection, if latency didn't matter I'd use a different medium (like Satellite)

sorry for the brief hijack.. but if you think you are being filtered or throtteled the best thing to do is document if it's really happening and then fight back if you discover there is an issue. I'd also CC any of the network neutrality folks if you find what appears to be filtering or throttling, or high latency at specific sites..

have you hit any of the internet speed test sites? I believe I recall seeing one at both MSN and CNet.. that will measure your actual bandwidth, see if you are getting the speed you are paying for.

After all if I'm paying more to get 1.5 or 3mb or somesuch, and then discover I'm only getting say 600K, then somebody better be able to explain to me why the hell I'm not billed for the 768K rate instead..

These tests are not conclusive since they can't tell you where the bandwidth/latency constraint is. The only thing the ISP can guarantee is the speed to it's upstream and perhaps through it. Once it hits some other ISP's network, they simply can't do anything.

I see nothing unexpected. It's yet another manuver by a content industry entity to have someone else work for and pay for the persuit of the protection of their rights. Yes, it's insulting in it's stone-wall indignance, but it's also fairly desperate.

have you hit any of the internet speed test sites? I believe I recall seeing one at both MSN and CNet.. that will measure your actual bandwidth, see if you are getting the speed you are paying for.

After all if I'm paying more to get 1.5 or 3mb or somesuch, and then discover I'm only getting say 600K, then somebody better be able to explain to me why the hell I'm not billed for the 768K rate instead..

These tests are not conclusive since they can't tell you where the bandwidth/latency constraint is. The only thing the ISP can guarantee is the speed to it's upstream and perhaps through it. Once it hits some other ISP's network, they simply can't do anything.

true enough to an extent. The thing is that in order to be an effective test, the better of these speed tests are sourced close enough to the backbone on wide enough pipes so that there is (while possible) not likely to be a significant restriction between them and your ISP.. Especially with a large ISP such as ATT/Verizon who basically sit on pretty dammed wide pipes.

Not a difinitive answer for sure, but frankly (I'm on verizon) I've NEVER had a problem with these speed test sites ability to fling the data at me without a restriction on their side.. If you try 2 or more of them and can't get a decent result, I think your ISP has "some 'splainin to do"

Ah, the DMCA: perfect example of government regulation at work. Notice how almost all parties involved within the DMCA framework have misused the statutes? In fact, the judicial interpretations on just what the DMCA actually says are so wide ranging that few in Congress can be said to possess a coherent concept of the DMCA legislation they passed and voted for.

You want "Network Neutrality" as penned by your legislators? Great, then get ready for DMCAII, because you ain't seen nothin' yet...

The DMCA was a monstrosity. Network Neutrality stands to make things even worse. If you want your freedom, keep the government out and allow the markets to self-determine along the lines of supply and demand.

Originally posted by WaltC:Ah, the DMCA: perfect example of government regulation at work. Notice how almost all parties involved within the DMCA framework have misused the statutes? In fact, the judicial interpretations on just what the DMCA actually says are so wide ranging that few in Congress can be said to possess a coherent concept of the DMCA legislation they passed and voted for.

You want "Network Neutrality" as penned by your legislators? Great, then get ready for DMCAII, because you ain't seen nothin' yet...

The DMCA was a monstrosity. Network Neutrality stands to make things even worse. If you want your freedom, keep the government out and allow the markets to self-determine along the lines of supply and demand.

I always find WaltC on the wrong side of the debate. If you don't have competition then you can't have the market sort it out. Now back to the original story. NBC is like a spoiled brat being told that the family money is cut off, and is screaming that it deserves more now and forever.

Is this the fact that there is no such thing as a 'red herring'? Since herrings,are not red .

Not knowledgable enough to discern the problems with IP (Internet Protocal).Domain Names,DHCP...need a Server,..yada,yada,all that stuff.

Hope surfers will be able to keep an edge up in the political conversation within this next political turn around.

Most of what copyrights deal with is in generalities anyway. Where for the most part copyrighted syndicate vi for the better of each other. When they've got time to suit up for government issue,they probably dont have much to much to do.

They can say criminal.

Still it would never be the premise for change. In this conversation anyway.

What worries me about that sort of thing is that P2P is likely to become more popular for official, legitimate activities. WoW may be a bit of an outlier in relying on bittorrent for patching, but I think the media companies are going to quickly realize that if they can break and harness the beast, it will be a tremendous savings in bandwidth costs for them.

As for blocking piracy.. don't? Let me put it this way: piracy is illegal, at least in most places. Whether you consider it theft or not is immaterial; it's illegal, or at the very least an actionable tort.

In most places, so's pornography and libel.

If you block the one, you've got no legal justification whatsoever for not blocking the other. Common carrier, however defined, is the only thing that stands between you and having to censor all images and text. If someone you host pisses off someone in Utah with some boobies, or pisses off someone in Britain by saying nasty things about Prince Harry, it's your ass. You'll be named in the suit, and since you probably have deeper pockets than that idiot blogger that provoked the mormons and royalists, it's your money they'll be gunning for.

The ISPs are being tremendously stupid about this, probably because many of them are content companies that are too damned focused on leaked movies to realize just how dangerous their legal situation is. Even packet shaping could serve as evidence in some future case based on this, especially if they let through some "legit" bittorrent traffic and block others.

Their EULAs will NOT save them from a British court.Shoplifting doesn't mean shit for price setting at Wal-Mart, either. This is just about trying to make consumers care about producers' profit margins.

Originally posted by WaltC:Ah, the DMCA: perfect example of government regulation at work. Notice how almost all parties involved within the DMCA framework have misused the statutes? In fact, the judicial interpretations on just what the DMCA actually says are so wide ranging that few in Congress can be said to possess a coherent concept of the DMCA legislation they passed and voted for.

You want "Network Neutrality" as penned by your legislators? Great, then get ready for DMCAII, because you ain't seen nothin' yet...

The DMCA was a monstrosity. Network Neutrality stands to make things even worse. If you want your freedom, keep the government out and allow the markets to self-determine along the lines of supply and demand.

I agree - the government should eliminate all government-granted monopolies at the federal and local level. No more subsidies, no more handouts, no more right of way. All the cable and fiber laid will revert to the ownership of whomever's property it resides on or under. The cable and telecom companies would be fucked and we wouldn't have to listen to their griping about "government regulation" any longer. Von Mises would be proud.

Originally posted by JournalBot:NBCU's general counsel argues that Net Neutrality is red herring, and that the real problem with online traffic flow is caused by piracypiracy which he believes the government should mandate ISPs to battle.

However, we need to look no further than US colleges and universities to see why this approach can be a big headache. College IT administrators already see themselves as starting a costly "arms race" with pirates who are always one step ahead of their technological tracking means.

Considering that the NSA already paid to have telcoms install wholesale internet wiretapping equipment, eavesdropping on "pirates" wouldn't be that expensive. Just have them look for "suspected terrorist" and problem solved.

The thing I've never been able to understand is, the tech companies absolutely DWARF the entertainment industry. If Fake Steve is to be believed (lunk), "Apple alone is twice the size of the entire U.S. box office." Why in the hell do any of the major tech corporations even take Media's phone calls?!